GM Assistance Tools

By TicToc556, in Deathwatch

Posted at

Gentlemen,

My Campaign had been running smoothly and I've got not only one but two separate groups playing parrallell to one another in the same game. With that said I could use some help.

I'm looking for any tools, publications, tips, tricks, ect ect that any of you widened gentlemen may use to speed along your games. Particularly combat. I tend to have decent sized battles and we use minis. The battles are relatively easy to track but very time intensive when I'm having to account for HP, abilities, statuses, weapons, ect ect ect.

I've looked at the Formation rules and the mass combat rules and to be honest they don't work too well for me. They seemed to be aimed at much larger scale that what I'm doing and also assume that the PCs will be in a position of Authority. The typical scene we fight in has 7-15 friendly troops (about half of which are PCs) and about double that in bad guys (though usually not met all at once) it's just too much to track and keep combat moving fluidly. Any ideas?

Posted at

I don't have any tools that could help you....but I have a tip or two that could - though you're probably doing this already.

1) I usually ask one of the PCs to track initiative order - one less thing for me to do

2) I have the enemies act in small groups instead of individual monsters

3) Unless the enemy is making a repeat performance OR I know it will be a sustained fight, I don't bother tracking their ammo - they'll usually die before coming close to that point

4) For any enemy below, say, 30-40 wounds, I track the number of hits done to it instead of actual damage. At the moment, my PCs all have the same weapons and deal about the same damage...so unless there is a RF I know that the standard enemy I toss at them dies on the second hit.

5) Don't be afraid of chicken scratch. I'll write shorthand and use my own labeling method when noting things down behind the GM screen

If you do find some neat tools please let me know....I'd be interested in using them too

Posted at

" 2) I have the enemies act in small groups instead of individual monsters"

I have been experimenting with different methods of accomplishing this very item. So far the best method that fits my needs is a threefold Hybrid. For big baddies I track them individually in the very old school sense. For "Hordes" I use the Horde rules from Black Crusade. For squad sized bad Guys I uses a kind of bastardized version of the Formation Rules from Only War. Basically an Elite is running a small unit of troops. They can use many of the Commands that formation have access to (mostly used to control and react to Moral issues to reflect leadership intervening), for Damage I use one Armor rating that covers their entire body, and I work their HPs by saying that regardless of the actual damage dealt; the Third hit that rpoduces any damage at all kills them. This still makes tracking statues and moral a pain in the butt but we also use minis so I am likely to just stat using tokens.

Posted at

Thanks for the links.